The present invention relates to control and/or production of ion beams, and more particularly, but not exclusively, relates to ion beam gun designs and applications.
Ion beam source applications span a broad and immense spectrum of technologies. This spectrum includes solid state device fabrication, application of focused ion beams, surface modification, increased tool wear resistance, thin film deposition, semiconductor ion implantation, fabrication of molecular and macromolecular electronic devices, sheet metal processing, sputtering, scattering and backscattering studies, surface analytical techniques, fusion reactors, and ion-beam etching just to name a few.
Desirable goals for an ion source are a simple-design, i.e. reasonable size relative to the applicant unit, and ease of maintenance. It is also desirable that the ion source should have “relatively” high extraction efficiency (current density/deposited power). It is often desired that the approach be scalable. Thus, there are many opportunities for further advancement in this area of technology.